The biggest thing for me was the built in timeline found in WIN. The ability to see each scene as a separate document or view a whole group of chapters as a single document, or even see it in outline form or as cards on the corkboard. The real power is the organization capability of the product. All that is neatly tucked away on the right side of the screen and can be hidden or displayed with a single click. There are labels, status indicators, keywords, custom meta-data (a whole separate topic), snapshots and comments and footnotes for the text. First at the very top is a short synopsis of the chapter or scene, a summary so you don’t need to read the whole thing to figure out the point. I already mentioned the inspector, but let’s talk about with it adds to the project. This is a great birds eye view of your work. The folders on the left magically update as I do this. Then I can easily move them around as I see the story taking shape. I can add a card for a scene and fill out the synopsis as I go and I can easily see and recall the purpose of the scene. I like to work my outline on the cork board. It actually works the way I work and is fully integrated into the inspector. I no longer need to worry about the link being dead when I go back, I’ve got the content right there in Scrivener waiting for me to use it. The web page import is great since it does it as a PDF. I can include pictures, web pages as PDFs, sound files, text, and links, all right inside of my project, knowing they will be safe and close at hand. Again WIN had a similar feature but not nearly as robust. This brings me to the research folder, which is one of my favorites. Again, you’re not limited to a preset list, you can create as many or as few as you want. Not only are there folders for your manuscript, but there are folders for characters, research, setting or anything else you could think of to create a folder for. Why, I’m not exactly sure, three levels is enough for me. Both products work on the concept of a tree, but the Scrivener tree, called a binder, is entirely free form, You can create folders inside of folders, text at any level you want and nest them as deep as you can imagine. It’s not just about the compile feature, I gained a lot more than I was expecting. I could create outlines, a full synopsis, proof copies, paperback formats, you name it you can create it as PDF, DOCX, RTF or just print it. The compile feature of Scrivener is the most powerful thing I’ve seen for outputting your work, as well as one of the most imposing things to learn. WIN certainly has the capability to output in various formats, but it’s very restrictive or was at the time. It was when I got to the end of the first novel and was ready to output it and needed differing formats and different text depending on who I was sending it to. So what brought about such a revolutionary change? What did I get and what did I lose? I exported my first and second novels and imported them directly into Scrivener to complete final editing, and have since started the planning for my third novel. Yes, that’s right I migrated lock, stock, and barrel. Things have changed, and I wanted to share what and why. In the past, I’ve posted about Write It Now (WIN), as I had been using it for some time and wrote my first novel in it and part of the second. It’s has been some time since I’ve posted anything here, but I have something new to talk about.
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